The Holy Land Project (1994-2002), 2002

The Holy Land Project (1994-2002)

In this project, I have been questioning the conflicting use of the words ‘Holy Land’ as a marketing strategy and its transformation into commodity products. Working in collaboration with well-known public companies I used their logo in order to create a tension between religious, political and economic interests. The products were produced in small series, each object signed and numbered.

The first project None of Your Honey, None of Your Sting was made in collaboration with the company from the Upper Galilee, Yarden Honey in 1994. I introduced in their label a text from Deuteronomy and added the logo of the ‘Tel Hai 94’ contemporary art event.

In 1996 I managed to acquire the permission from a government-owned company, Arim, to print its logo on a special edition of hand-made cotton bags filled with earth. The work, Holy land for Sale, related that instead of the romantic notion of the biblical Holy Land, the “blooming of the desert” had now become an expression of advanced technological urbanization. A smaller logo of a man digging a mound of earth baring an uncanny visual relationship with Arim‘s logo was an autoportrait.

That same year, I asked the private company Air MonitorLTD., to purify the air in my exhibition at the Herzliya Art Museum creating a special edition of purified sealed Holy Air cans.

In 1998, collaborating with the water company Mei Eden, I created an installation in Dusseldorf using 1000 liters of water and then in New York I showed in a special edition of Holy Water bottles signed and numbered.

My collaboration with the Jewish National Fund on several projects related to the White Land Forbidden Forest (1992-2002) started in 1991. In 2002, I created a special edition with their Blue Boxes, adding the word Holy Land on the back of the boxes and using the hole in the box for the letter ‘o’.

Other works relating to the commodification of the Holy Land was executed with baby powder mild and with olives and can be find in the Mother Land project